03/14/12: Think spring, think local elections

This op-ed appeared in The Virginian-Pilot on the date shown.

THE FIELD is set.

Last Tuesday was not just Super Tuesday but also the filing deadline for candidates for May 1 municipal elections. While a number of localities across Virginia, including Portsmouth, Suffolk and Virginia Beach, have chosen to move their elections to November, many have not. In Hampton Roads, that means local elections in Norfolk, Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News and Williamsburg.

The noise of the other elections later this year tends to drown out most coverage of these elections. It is far easier to learn about the candidates for U.S. Senate or president than those who offer themselves up for service to our communities.

What little coverage there may be will often focus on the candidates who already have name recognition, such as former Del. Tom Gear, who is running for the City Council in Hampton, or on the negatives of the candidates. Little will be written about what the candidates hope to accomplish if elected, except late in the contest.

Local elections give us arguably the best opportunity to help shape what we want our communities to look like. Those who are running are much more accessible to us because they’re our neighbors. With rare exceptions, these will be low-cost affairs, run on the strength of shoe leather.

Local elections also give us the opportunity to see how things are done in other communities. Chesapeake, for example, has at-large elections, meaning that those elected represent the entire city. Eight candidates have filed for the three available City Council seats and seven have filed for four School Board seats.

Hampton employs an at-large system for its council and a ward system for the School Board. It, too, has eight candidates for three council seats, and eight candidates for three School Board seats. The sole at-large seat on the School Board is uncontested.

Norfolk has a ward system for the City Council, and the School Board is appointed. Just two council seats, the super wards, are up for election. Each represents half of the city. Both races are contested, with four candidates in Ward 6 and two in Ward 7.

Where the ward system is employed, voters should check whether the recent redistricting has affected the district in which they vote. In Norfolk, a single precinct, Barron Black, changed from Ward 6 to Ward 7. All the registered voters in the precinct received updated voter registration cards recently, even though the cards themselves don’t have super wards on them.

As a resident of that precinct , I’m still smarting over the comment by Mayor Paul Fraim that the move makes Ward 7 “more white.” While that may be true, it just shows how much we in Norfolk need to look at how we can join other localities in Virginia, the latest being Prince William County, to be removed from the provisions of the Voting Rights Act. Where the candidates stand on that issue will be part of my decision of which of the two will get my vote.

Thomas Jefferson is said to have said that government that is closest to the people governs best. It’s hard to get any closer to the people than local elections.